Are you a terrorist?

[Bsmith]

Source: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/07/23/blacklisted/

 

 

Expected or not, it is real the secret US goverment guide wich helps them mark people as terrorists, so put on your tinfoil head and join us into the mystrious world of the terrorist checklist, I can already nearly guarantee you are on the list.

The article pieces will be quoted and my own comments/thoughts will be below them.

 

The Obama administration has quietly approved a substantial expansion of the terrorist watchlist system, authorizing a secret process that requires neither “concrete facts” nor “irrefutable evidence” to designate an American or foreigner as a terrorist, according to a key government document obtained by The Intercept.

 

The “March 2013 Watchlisting Guidance,” a 166-page document issued last year by the National Counterterrorism Center, spells out the government’s secret rules for putting individuals on its main terrorist database, as well as the no fly list and the selectee list, which triggers enhanced screening at airports and border crossings. The new guidelines allow individuals to be designated as representatives of terror organizations without any evidence they are actually connected to such organizations, and it gives a single White House official the unilateral authority to place entire “categories” of people the government is tracking onto the no fly and selectee lists. It broadens the authority of government officials to “nominate” people to the watchlists based on what is vaguely described as “fragmentary information.” It also allows for dead people to be watchlisted.

 

Over the years, the Obama and Bush Administrations have fiercely resisted disclosing the criteria for placing names on the databases—though the guidelines are officially labeled as unclassified. In May, Attorney General Eric Holder even invoked the state secrets privilege to prevent watchlisting guidelines from being disclosed in litigation launched by an American who was on the no fly list. In an affidavit, Holder called them a “clear roadmap” to the government’s terrorist-tracking apparatus, adding: “The Watchlisting Guidance, although unclassified, contains national security information that, if disclosed … could cause significant harm to national security.”

 

So, basicly they are saying that the list officialy doesn't exist(just like most CIA practices) but still got leaked, it actually doesn't really surprise me that you can be "watchlisted" if you are dead(last sentence 2nd paragraph)

 

 

The document’s definition of “terrorist” activity includes actions that fall far short of bombing or hijacking. In addition to expected crimes, such as assassination or hostage-taking, the guidelines also define destruction of government property and damaging computers used by financial institutions as activities meriting placement on a list. They also define as terrorism any act that is “dangerous” to property and intended to influence government policy through intimidation.

 

Did you ever damage something form the goverment? as stupid form bumping into a police car by accident to rioting? ever damaged a computer owned by your school? ever got into contact with anti-gov propagenda? CONGRATULATIONS! you are a terrorist, you win!

I mean seriously? I live in a country where all schools are owned by the goverment, if they watch the whole world(wich they probarlly do, tinfoilhat) then you can be listed at the age of 16 by breaking a schoolwindow because you where leaning against it.

 

 

This combination opens the way to ensnaring innocent people in secret government dragnets. It can also be counterproductive. When resources are devoted to tracking people who are not genuine risks to national security, the actual threats get fewer resources—and might go unnoticed.

 

There is the oroblem already, alot of people that are innocent are probarlly getting tracked right now(no doubt I belong to that group)

 

 

“If reasonable suspicion is the only standard you need to label somebody, then it’s a slippery slope we’re sliding down here, because then you can label anybody anything,” says David Gomez, a former senior FBI special agent with experience running high-profile terrorism investigations. “Because you appear on a telephone list of somebody doesn’t make you a terrorist. That’s the kind of information that gets put in there.”

 

So basicly he says you won't make you a terrorist, but they still put the label terrorist on you? _{is this guy confirming they have acces to all our contactlists on our phone's?}

 

 

The fallout is personal too. There are severe consequences for people unfairly labeled a terrorist by the U.S. government, which shares its watchlist data with local law enforcement, foreign governments, and “private entities.” Once the U.S. government secretly labels you a terrorist or terrorist suspect, other institutions tend to treat you as one. It can become difficult to get a job (or simply to stay out of jail). It can become burdensome—or impossible—to travel. And routine encounters with law enforcement can turn into ordeals.

 

Dear US people, leave your country ASAP! NOW!

I mean, come on, I have no words for this.

 

 

In 2012 Tim Healy, the former director of the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center, described to CBS News how watchlists are used by police officers. “So if you are speeding, you get pulled over, they’ll query that name,” he said. “And if they are encountering a known or suspected terrorist, it will pop up and say call the Terrorist Screening Center…. So now the officer on the street knows he may be dealing with a known or suspected terrorist.” Of course, the problem is that the “known or suspected terrorist” might just be an ordinary citizen who should not be treated as a menace to public safety.

I think you are already have quite a problem if you have such advanced systems but known terrorists are still able to get in, get a drivers license and travel the country, while speeding civilians get pulled over by a cop that directly pulls his gun because you "might be" a terrorist.

 

 

Until 2001, the government did not prioritize building a watchlist system. On 9/11, the government’s list of people barred from flying included just 16 names. Today, the no fly list has swelled to tens of thousands of “known or suspected terrorists” (the guidelines refer to them as KSTs). The selectee list subjects people to extra scrutiny and questioning at airports and border crossings. The government has created several other databases, too. The largest is the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE), which gathers terrorism information from sensitive military and intelligence sources around the world. Because it contains classified information that cannot be widely distributed, there is yet another list, the Terrorist Screening Database, or TSDB, which has been stripped of TIDE’s classified data so that it can be shared. When government officials refer to “the watchlist,” they are typically referring to the TSDB. (TIDE is the responsibility of the National Counterterrorism Center; the TSDB is managed by the Terrorist Screening Center at the FBI.)

 

Atleast they are kinda honest, altough they went kinda crazy after 9/11, it is a solution, but not the best I think.

 

 

In a statement, a spokesman for the National Counterterrorism Center told The Intercept that “the watchlisting system is an important part of our layered defense to protect the United States against future terrorist attacks” and that “watchlisting continues to mature to meet an evolving, diffuse threat.” He added that U.S. citizens are afforded extra protections to guard against improper listing, and that no one can be placed on a list solely for activities protected by the First Amendment. A representative of the Terrorist Screening Center did not respond to a request for comment.

 

The fact they say US citizens havae "extra protections" and a representative of the "Terrorist Screening Center" wouldn't respond, doesn't do good on my trust-o-matic-meter.

 

 

The system has been criticized for years. In 2004, Sen. Ted Kennedy complained that he was barred from boarding flights on five separate occasions because his name resembled the alias of a suspected terrorist. Two years later, CBS News obtained a copy of the no fly list and reported that it included Bolivian president Evo Morales and Lebanese parliament head Nabih Berri. One of the watchlists snared Mikey Hicks, a Cub Scout who got his first of many airport pat-downs at age two. In 2007, the Justice Department’s inspector general issued a scathing report identifying “significant weaknesses” in the system. And in 2009, after a Nigerian terrorist was able to board a passenger flight to Detroit and nearly detonated a bomb sewn into his underwear despite his name having been placed on the TIDE list, President Obama admitted that there had been a “systemic failure.”

 

No matter how much i love goverments failing, how the hell can a 2 year old be a dangerous "terrorist" and not allowed to fly because of this list, while a full grown man wich is on that list and probarlly can be indentified(think of terrorist stereotyping) but still board a freaking flight? This isn't failure anympre, this is just blindfolded screwing around.

 

 

Obama hoped that his response to the “underwear bomber” would be a turning point. In 2010, he gave increased powers and responsibilities to the agencies that nominate individuals to the lists, placing pressure on them to add names. His administration also issued a set of new guidelines for the watchlists. Problems persisted, however. In 2012, the U.S. Government Accountability Office published a report that bluntly noted there was no agency responsible for figuring out “whether watchlist-related screening or vetting is achieving intended results.” The guidelines were revised and expanded in 2013—and a source within the intelligence community subsequently provided a copy to The Intercept.

 

So there was no agency checking if the listed people where truelly terrorists? and the revised guidelines did ehmm.... not much?

I don't understand what they are actually saying in that picture, my english fails me, but I have the feeling it didn't do much.

 

 

The five chapters and 11 appendices of the “Watchlisting Guidance” are filled with acronyms, legal citations, and numbered paragraphs; it reads like an arcane textbook with a vocabulary all its own. Different types of data on suspected terrorists are referred to as “derogatory information,” “substantive derogatory information,” “extreme derogatory information” and “particularized derogatory information.” The names of suspected terrorists are passed along a bureaucratic ecosystem of “originators,” “nominators,” “aggregators,” “screeners,” and “encountering agencies.” And “upgrade,” usually a happy word for travellers, is repurposed to mean that an individual has been placed on a more restrictive list.

 

So they made stuff up, just to make it seem more complicated and give people a reason to trust them?

Some of the words exist, but I highly doubt the fact there are people with these positions, since no agency was checking the list.

 

 

The heart of the document revolves around the rules for placing individuals on a watchlist. “All executive departments and agencies,” the document says, are responsible for collecting and sharing information on terrorist suspects with the National Counterterrorism Center. It sets a low standard—”reasonable suspicion“—for placing names on the watchlists, and offers a multitude of vague, confusing, or contradictory instructions for gauging it. In the chapter on “Minimum Substantive Derogatory Criteria”—even the title is hard to digest—the key sentence on reasonable suspicion offers little clarity:

 

 

“To meet the REASONABLE SUSPICION standard, the NOMINATOR, based on the totality of the circumstances, must rely upon articulable intelligence or information which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrants a determination that an individual is known or suspected to be or has been knowingly engaged in conduct constituting, in preparation for, in aid of, or related to TERRORISM and/or TERRORIST ACTIVITIES.”

 

The rulebook makes no effort to define an essential phrase in the passage—”articulable intelligence or information.” After stressing that hunches are not reasonable suspicion and that “there must be an objective factual basis” for labeling someone a terrorist, it goes on to state that no actual facts are required:

 

 

“In determining whether a REASONABLE SUSPICION exists, due weight should be given to the specific reasonable inferences that a NOMINATOR is entitled to draw from the facts in light of his/her experience and not on unfounded suspicions or hunches. Although irrefutable evidence or concrete facts are not necessary, to be reasonable, suspicion should be as clear and as fully developed as circumstances permit.”

 

While the guidelines nominally prohibit nominations based on unreliable information, they explicitly regard “uncorroborated” Facebook or Twitter posts as sufficient grounds for putting an individual on one of the watchlists. “Single source information,” the guidelines state, “including but not limited to ‘walk-in,’ ‘write-in,’ or postings on social media sites, however, should not automatically be discounted … the NOMINATING AGENCY should evaluate the credibility of the source, as well as the nature and specificity of the information, and nominate even if that source is uncorroborated.”

 

So they do nearly everything to put you on that list, if I'm not mistaken?

 

 

There are a number of loopholes for putting people onto the watchlists even if reasonable suspicion cannot be met.

 

Okey, that says enough, I bet that I'm getting put on this list for sure, by writing this and posting this article.

 

 

One is clearly defined: The immediate family of suspected terrorists—their spouses, children, parents, or siblings—may be watchlisted without any suspicion that they themselves are engaged in terrorist activity. But another loophole is quite broad—”associates” who have a defined relationship with a suspected terrorist, but whose involvement in terrorist activity is not known. A third loophole is broader still—individuals with “a possible nexus” to terrorism, but for whom there is not enough “derogatory information” to meet the reasonable suspicion standard.

 

WOHO all my relatives and friends are also on the list!

 

 

Americans and foreigners can be nominated for the watchlists if they are associated with a terrorist group, even if that group has not been designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. They can also be treated as “representatives” of a terrorist group even if they have “neither membership in nor association with the organization.” The guidelines do helpfully note that certain associations, such as providing janitorial services or delivering packages, are not grounds for being watchlisted.

 

So you can be a terrorist by being in a group that can be seen as a terrorist movement without actually being a veriefied terrorist movement according to the US gov?

 

 

The nomination system appears to lack meaningful checks and balances. Although government officials have repeatedly said there is a rigorous process for making sure no one is unfairly placed in the databases, the guidelines acknowledge that all nominations of “known terrorists” are considered justified unless the National Counterterrorism Center has evidence to the contrary. In a recent court filing, the government disclosed that there were 468,749 KST nominations in 2013, of which only 4,915 were rejected–a rate of about one percent. The rulebook appears to invert the legal principle of due process, defining nominations as “presumptively valid.”

 

Hopefully they notified the people that wheren't accepted on this list, it hurts to be rejected without being notified.

[Kamina]

The government are the real terrorists. 

[Mooshi]

Don't shout stupid crap like "I HAVE A BOMB" in public places is a good start of what not to do.

[Totally-A-Hero]

bascially this has ben going on for 20 years so im not surprised, even though there are watching us and all of this crap its still better than Most, MOST countries out there so ya think ill stay here, just dont say Kill, and Obama in the same sentence in phone, they have a databaske that looks for those key words. Then they search your phone and hard drive ! YA SO MUCH FUN I LUV USA!!!! LAND OF FREE MY ASS!

[Rorgash]

i was in a situation where i was able to marry the woman i love/d and move to the US, but i could not bring myself to live in such a shit country that in the end we instead broke up and i stayed here in Sweden..

 

Love does not always prevail 

[Jade]

I really don't want to bother going through the post and specifically quoting, so yeah.

 

"Dear US People, leave your country now!"

Tell me somewhere else that is genuinely better in every aspect, then. As far as I'm concerned, most companies and services are specifically offered in the US, and more often than not, in other countries.

[Rorgash]

Don't shout stupid crap like "I HAVE A BOMB" in public places is a good start of what not to do.

or make jokes in online games, that puts you in isolation until you commit suicide..  (has happened like twice now?)

[Mitrailleuse]

tldr

[AlwaysFSX]

Don't shout stupid crap like "I HAVE A BOMB" in public places is a good start of what not to do.

I HAVE A SCHLONG!

 

*applause*

[Mooshi]

or make jokes in online games, that puts you in isolation until you commit suicide..  (has happened like twice now?)

Yep. The government is turning a badly writen Hollywood script into reality everyday. As someone with lots of native American blood, I blame the Euro settlers who ended up destroying our coutry with this form of government. Washington I can respect, but not these jackasses in office today. I would blame Obama, but he's a puppet.

[Mooshi]

I HAVE A SCHLONG!

 

*applause*

OMG SO DO I LETS BE BFFS

[ERSCreeper]

@Bentheren

[Paralectic]

tldr

tdlr murica, but you live in Israel, that's as terrible.

[Manny Calavera]

I really don't want to bother going through the post and specifically quoting, so yeah.

 

"Dear US People, leave your country now!"

Tell me somewhere else that is genuinely better in every aspect, then. As far as I'm concerned, most companies and services are specifically offered in the US, and more often than not, in other countries.

US is not a country. What u smokin? 

[Bsmith]

I really don't want to bother going through the post and specifically quoting, so yeah.

 

"Dear US People, leave your country now!"

Tell me somewhere else that is genuinely better in every aspect, then. As far as I'm concerned, most companies and services are specifically offered in the US, and more often than not, in other countries.

 

Since all other goverments just let stuff like this happen, you are nowhere safe, but the best counter measure is a country like Canada or the netherlands, both less strict, you are protected for the biggest bs form the US gov and they have ideal locations if companies decide to move outside the US(US specific isn't always good/better, other countires can have samilair services, with the same owner but a diffrent name.)

 

tldr

 

the US gov has a handbook that helps then indentify people as a terrorist, you are even getting on it when someone you know qualifies for it.

 

US is not a country. What u smokin? 

 

It is a collabration of countries, just like the UK officialy are and the netherlands(was/where), altough they get seen as a single country in global views since they fall under a single goverment, altough it is easier to call someone form Texas a American then a scottish man a Brittisch person.

[Lord Sparklebottom]

Norway FTW

[qwertywarrior]

why is this in technews ?

[Manny Calavera]

 

It is a collabration of countries, just like the UK officialy are and the netherlands(was/where), altough they get seen as a single country in global views since they fall under a single goverment, altough it is easier to call someone form Texas a American then a scottish man a Brittisch person.

No, just states.

USA inc. is a corporation. If you want, you dont need to be citizen of this corporation. For example natives ( Moor ppl ) are not citizens unless they are registered as such and get USA ID. If they are allready, they can opt out and abide by their own - original constitution.  

Only columbia is something unique and not considered a "state".

 

They own your ass this is not just a conspiracy theory its a fact

[ACatWithThumbs]

Since all other goverments just let stuff like this happen, you are nowhere safe, but the best counter measure is a country like Canada or the netherlands, both less strict, you are protected for the biggest bs form the US gov and they have ideal locations if companies decide to move outside the US(US specific isn't always good/better, other countires can have samilair services, with the same owner but a diffrent name.)

 

 

the US gov has a handbook that helps then indentify people as a terrorist, you are even getting on it when someone you know qualifies for it.

 

 

It is a collabration of countries, just like the UK officialy are and the netherlands(was/where), altough they get seen as a single country in global views since they fall under a single goverment, altough it is easier to call someone form Texas a American then a scottish man a Brittisch person.

The US isn't a collaboration of Countries.(The EU is)

It has 50 states in it not 50 countries.

Germany as an example has 16 states it's still one country with 1 main government and smaller sub governments that make state laws just like the US.

 

[Mitrailleuse]

tdlr murica, but you live in Israel, that's as terrible.

sorry,i wasn't given any choices to where i want to be born.

[Hazy125]

Guys, I put a batch file into the network startup folder of my school that automatically logs you off as soon as you login on all school computers last year, I am actually a terrorist 

[Marvzl1357]

நான் தமிழ் இல்லை

[Paralectic]

sorry,i wasn't given any choices to where i want to be born.

Not assaulting you in any way :-) it's just that they are having war there.

[Skylercompany]

Considering my beliefs that I would rather not get into, you could call me a freedom fighter but the government would insist on making people think i'm a terrorist.

 

The government deems anyone a terrorist if they get into the way of their agenda or do something unimaginable.

[Nomelas]

the laaaandddd offf the FREEEEEEEE.... ya right